As regards the responsibility for the events of 1914, the Reichstag must be saddled with its share. The spirit of Prussian militarism, with its ideas of European domination, had made unmistakable headway in that body during recent years. Whether this was primarily due to the dispute with France over Morocco, or to colonial aspirations, or to the world-policy inaugurated by Prince von Bülow, is of little consequence. Up to 1907 the increases in the army had met with so stubborn a resistance in Parliament that, in order to secure a majority for each fresh army bill, the Imperial Government had to make prolonged strategical efforts, like a general who tries to capture a fortress with ill-disciplined troops under his command. But the opposition to the army bill of 1913 was of a negligible character; it consisted only of the nationalist malcontents and the Socialists, the former being anti-German, the latter anti-militarist.
The Reichstag includes not less than ten parties and groups, each having a special designation. The most sharply defined political conceptions are to be found among the Conservatives, to whom we must add—while regarding it as distinct, in view of its religious character—the Catholic Centre; the Liberals; and the Socialists. Thus we have three great monarchical or middle-class parties, and a Social-Democratic party of apparently republican tendencies.
III.
I will not linger over the Conservative Imperialists, a group of great manufacturers, landowners, and officials, all being, by their very nature, supporters of the Government.
The Conservative party proper, consisting of only forty-three members in the present Reichstag, is drawn almost entirely from the agricultural population of the provinces to the east of the Elbe; it is under the iron rule of the landed gentry. This is the genuinely national Prussian party, indissolubly attached to the principles inscribed on its flag: loyalty to the throne, to the Protestant faith, and to monarchical institutions, the chief of which is the army. To this we may add a rooted aversion for nations which Prussia and Germany regarded with distrust, above all for France. I am speaking here of the feelings prevalent among the Conservatives before the war; to-day the first place in their hatred is presumably filled by England or by Italy.
The Prussian aristocrats who direct this party have behind them a long past history of glory and devotion. Their ancestors played their part, no less than Frederick the Great, in building up the greatness of the monarchy. In no European country have the nobles rendered such splendid services to the reigning dynasty or shed more blood to cement the fabric of its power.
In the Prussian Diet, from 1862 to 1866, the Conservative party stood alone in supporting the adventurous and unconstitutional policy of Bismarck. It has never ceased supplying the Government with officers and civil servants in such large numbers that it constitutes one of the great driving forces of the German army and administration. Its leaders, although inveterate foes of Socialism, have realized the timeliness of the social legislation begun under William I. and completed under William II. Accordingly they have voted for these laws in docile fashion, though without enthusiasm. The weak joint in the otherwise flawless armour of their patriotism is that they are apt to put the interests of the agrarian section before those of the country as a whole. The protection of agriculture, one of the vital sources of a nation’s prosperity, ought to be, according to the Conservative doctrines, the first duty of the Imperial Government.
The loyalty to the throne displayed by the Prussian squires, those Junkers who are the real nobles in a kingdom where the feudal aristocracy is almost extinct save in Silesia and on the banks of the Rhine, shows no trace of servility. More royalist than the King, they think fit to dictate to him the policy that he ought to pursue. A satirical version of the Prussian national anthem “for the use of Conservatives” contains the following distich: